Community News
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Winter Warmer Workshop
Is it really possible to keep our compost hot in these cold winter months?If you’ve been following the Compost Conversation, you will undoubtedly know that the reason compost gets hot has little to do with the outside temperature, or position in the sun, and almost everything to do with how well we are feeding and…
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Working to minimise alcohol-related harm
A Community Alcohol Profile undertaken by Mount Alexander Shire Council last year found that residents in the shire had a higher than average overall rate of alcohol consumption and a higher rate of single occasion risky drinking (53.3 per cent) compared to the Victorian average (41.8 per cent). The profile also found that Mount Alexander…
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Legendary legacies
Two local schools, Chewton Primary School and Castlemaine Steiner School and Kindergarten, have been announced as winners in the 2024 ResourceSmart Schools Awards held in Melbourne last Tuesday. Chewton Primary School, which has just 87 students, was recognised with the ResourceSmart School of the Year award for its work to incorporate First Nations’ perspectives into…
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Meat and dairy … in or out?
I’m sure you have come across the claim that you can’t or shouldn’t compost meat scraps and dairy products. Given how often it is repeated, it must be true … mustn’t it? Perhaps it is time to channel our inner ‘toddler’ and ask “why?”. If we can understand the reasons ‘not to compost meat and…
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Fashion for foodbank
The Kindness Collective at Kyneton is hosting an Op Shop Fashion Parade fundraiser this month to help raise funds for the Kyneton Foodbank. Amid cost-of-living pressures, the Kindness Collective is seeing daily increases of people signing up to use the foodbank and coming in for soup kitchen lunches. “The fashion parade fundraiser will help us…
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Reconciliation recognition
Mount Alexander Shire Council’s Australia Day – Survival Day event has been recognised with a Reconciliation Victoria award. The event was among the winners of the 2024 Maggolee Awards, which celebrate and recognise strong partnerships between Victorian local governments and First Nations Peoples. Castlemaine Australia Day – Survival Day is a community event held annually…
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Harcourt Farming Co-op recruiting
Harcourt Organic Farming Co-op is recruiting new farmers and enterprises. The co-op is a collaboration of diverse organic and regenerative farmers who lease land on a single farm in Harcourt. Katie and Hugh Finlay own the farm and began the co-op to diversify the farming on their land and give young farmers an entry point…
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You can’t compost that…can you?
Have you been told that you can’t, or shouldn’t, compost a particular thing? Perhaps it is onion skins or citrus peel. Meat and dairy are on the exclusion list for lots of folk, or perhaps it’s waste oil or fats? Weed seeds, pest infested fruit and plants like couch or kikuyu grasses are usually sighted…
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Rory named ‘Chef of the Year’
The head chef at Campbells Creek’s historic Five Flags Hotel, Rory Brown, has been named ‘Chef of the Year’ at the Australian Hotels Association (Victoria) 2024 State Awards for Excellence. The state winner will now go on to vie for the national title in Brisbane in November. Rory is in his seventh year at the…
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‘Be curious and be kind’
Students and teachers from schools across Mount Alexander Shire came together at Castlemaine’s Western Reserve on Friday, to offer heartfelt words of apology to our First Nations people, ahead of the national day of healing on Sunday. It was an emotional morning as student leaders from six local schools spoke, with the innocence and sincerity…
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Cellulose, chitin or lignin?
The bodies of all living things, from the largest trees to the smallest microorganisms are mostly made of carbon, organised in microscopic chains called ‘polymers’. These carbon polymers take different forms, and each form breaks down in our compost in a different way and at different times. Let’s take a look at three common carbon…
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Giz Asaurus to roar again
How do you make a stranger smile? A creative Gisborne teenager has found just the right combination of silly, fun and lovable to do the trick. He is the Giz Asaurus – determined to make your day, and he’s been doing exactly that for many residents with his sporadic appearances around Gisborne since January. The…